Android App Video Review: Iron Wars

Iron Wars is a new top down arena shooter from Tap Mobile. It's a very simple game without much complexity, offering a very streamlined competitive shooter experience. The graphics are pretty well done and there's nothing really wrong with the game, but it gets stale and repetitive fairly quickly.

The game has you playing as random robotic rolling balls designed for combat and death. There is a campaign mode, as well as quick play and local multiplayer. There is no real story to speak of, and there are no specifically designed levels in the campaign. It's really just a drawn out tutorial using the various maps and game modes of the multiplayer in which you kill bots over and over. You'll need to beat campaign mode to unlock all the content for the other modes though. I wish they made all the maps available to you from the start, as trying to play campaign in one straight shot can get quite boring.

There are three game modes to choose from: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Domination, which has you capturing specific control points on a map. Gameplay involves rolling around with the left stick and simply hitting the fire button, as targeting is all automatic. You roam the map looking for various pickups and weapons. Pickups include health, extra armor, spikes that turn you into a battering ram, damage boosts, and impenetrable shields. The weapons range from your basic pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenade launcher, and rocket launcher, to the more creative acid cannon, gravity gun, and uber powerful plasma cannon. Each weapon has its own strengths and weaknesses, and they're surprisingly creative and fun to use.

The game's visuals are well done and detailed throughout the nine available maps, but they’re also unremarkable, aside from the rolling balls of death thing. As I said, there's nothing really wrong with the game, but it's not very compelling either. It's still great to kill some time, and I'm sure it's a lot more fun with friends. Luckily, you can easily convince all your friends to download it too, because this app is completely free.